The Global Virome Project

The Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT program has discovered only one new human virus. They claim that Bas-Congo virus (BASV) was involved in a human disease outbreak (1). This claim is dubious.

Genomic RNA of BASV was sequenced from a blood sample drawn in 2009 from a nurse living in Mangala in Bas-Congo (now Kongo Central) province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2,3). The nurse, who showed symptoms of a hemorrhagic fever, had cared for two children aged 13 and 15 who died with similar symptoms.

Criteria for proving disease causation date to the 19th century postulates of Koch, Henle and Loeffler (4-6). BASV sequences were identified from only one case, the nurse in Mangala. BASV has not been isolated, expressed by molecular cloning or propagated in cell culture, nor has BASV been shown to cause any disease in an animal.

Direct evident exists that another agent caused the hemorrhagic fevers in Bas-Congo in 2009. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported 121 cases of hemorrhagic diarrhea with fever in Bas-Congo in the weeks prior to and after the deaths of the two children. All sick individuals in Mangala were likely infected with Shigella, which was detected in some cases. The nurse responded rapidly to antibiotic treatment.

There have been no reports of human disease associated with BASV or other tibroviruses since 2009. However, tibroviruses have been reported to make harmless incursions into humans (7) and cattle (8). The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses stated (9), "The role of tibroviruses in human disease is not currently clear." We agree and dispute the claim of EPT PREDICT investigators that BASV has been established as a human pathogen. This claim should not be used to justify the Global Virome Project, which represents a continuation and major budgetary expansion of EPT PREDICT.

REFERENCES
1. D. Carroll et al., The Global Virome Project. Science 359, 872-874 (2018).
2. G. Grard et al., A novel rhabdovirus associated with acute hemorrhagic fever in central Africa. PLoS Pathog 8, e1002924 (2012).
3. C. Chiu, J. Fair, E. M. Leroy, Bas-Congo virus: another deadly virus? Future microbiology 8, 139-141 (2013).
4. G. Antonelli, S. Cutler, Evolution of the Koch postulates: towards a 21st-century understanding of microbial infection. Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases 22, 583-584 (2016).
5. D. N. Fredricks, D. A. Relman, Sequence-based identification of microbial pathogens: a reconsideration of Koch's postulates. Clin Microbiol Rev 9, 18-33 (1996).
6. Inglis TJ. Principia aetiologica: taking causality beyond Koch's postulates. J
Med Microbiol. 56, 1419-22 (2007).
7. M. H. Stremlau et al., Discovery of novel rhabdoviruses in the blood of healthy individuals from West Africa. PLoS neglected tropical diseases 9, e0003631 (2015).
8. A. Gubala et al., Tibrogargan and Coastal Plains rhabdoviruses: genomic characterization, evolution of novel genes and seroprevalence in Australian livestock. J Gen Virol 92, 2160-2170 (2011).
9. P. J. Walker et al., ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Rhabdoviridae. J Gen Virol, 99, 447-448 (2018).

Permafrost viruses can be new threat
Learning the lesion from historical viral pandemics and epidemics outbreak, public health community prerequisites to recognize etiology of emerging viruses 1,2. Viral Genome Project (VGP) aiming to identify vast pool of viruses from reservoir animal species can be the stepping stone to deal with unforeseen emergencies of permafrost viruses 2. There are thousands of new virus species, frozen deep within thick ice sheet of glaciers, can awake again in life forms 3. Public health community along with environmental scientist should take a global initiative to discover these emerging viruses and shield them away from animal reservoirs encountering to human.

References
(1) J. K. Taubenberger and D. M. Morens (2006), 1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics, Emerg Infect Dis: 12(1): 15-22
(2) (2) D. Carroll, P. Daszak, N.D. Wolfe, G. F. Gao, C. M. Morel, S. Morzaria, A. Pablos-Méndez, O. Tomori, J. A. K. Mazet (2018), The Global Virome Project, Science: 359(6378): 872-874.
(3) (3) http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice...